Gothic II: NotR - requesting build advice

[Alex_Steel]

Many times, developers don't have a chance to complete the product they meant for us to play. Take Gothic III as an example.

Also

A software bug is the common term used to describe an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways.

 

[Metro]

This is why I generally rotate three or four save games for every game I play.

 

[Murk]

I may be the only person to experience this, but I did the same thing with Lares and encountered that "bug" but then, after wrapping up some of the Ring of Water quests, he got new dialog options and gave me the amulet. I was under the impression that there was a post-hoc fix for this similar if not exactly as I experienced it. I have the Gothic trilogy version of G2 with the expansion, the gold version I believe.

Also, yes, there are console workarounds available.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS I GOT GOTHIC GOLD AND IT IS WAY FUCKING HARDER THAN I REMEMBER GOTHIC 2 BEING

BROS I AM GETTING RAPED ONLY PROGRESSING BIT BY B IT FUCKING HOUSEWIVES KICK MY ASS IT IS RIDICULOUS

 

[Eyeball]

The NOTR areas offer you a lot more opportunities to get stat increasing potions, XP and loot, so in order to avoid the end game being a cakewalk Piranha Bytes gave the entire game a huge boost in difficulty and I do mean fucking huge.

I did not like this and used a trainer to at least up weapon damage enough to let a fucking level 1 wolf die from 5 swings instead of simply laughing at my puny blows and twoshotting me. Increased my enjoyment of this otherwise pretty solid expansion a thousandfold and I recommend you do the same.

 

[Metro]

I never played G2 without the expansion and while I admit combat is obviously difficult it isn't anything that can't be overcome by pacing yourself and slowly building up your character. That said, there are some things that are just ludicrously poorly balanced like the bandits at the lighthouse and the ones on the bridge (usually just cheese those with a demon scroll).

 

[Skittles]

Yeah, other than patience, the expansion kind of requires some metagame planning. It's an extra world of pain if you mis-allocate too many LP in the early game.

 

[Crichton]

There's a trainer out there (you can find it on WorldofGothic) that allows you to increase LP per level; I would reccommend that over anything else if you're unhappy with NotR. Increasing LP per level from 10 to 15 or somesuch won't screw up the endgame too badly since costs are progressive and it takes some of the bite out of the early game. The biggest problem I had was that the game didn't keep track of how much of your stats you paid for and how much came from tablet/apple/potion bonuses. So to be screwed as little as possible, one should avoid using any of the boosting items until the very end when as many points have been bought as possible. THAT'S COMPLETELY TEDIOUS! WHY NOT JUST LET ME USE THE STUPID BOOSTING ITEMS WHENEVER I WANT AND ONLY USE THE "PURCHASED" STAT VALUE FOR CAP/PURCHASE PRICE!?!?

 

[Jasede]

I'd really just do this:

Play and spend points as you want. Struggle through. If you find you can't finish it, restart and fix what seemed to be your mistakes.

Somehow the game becomes less enjoyable when you use a guide to most efficiently use your learning points. I did and was a little disappointed, and of course deserve ash to be heaped upon my head for being so foolish.

 

[Skittles]

Well, he's replaying...

And I meant knowing things like "don't mix ranged and melee--don't do ranged at all, actually," "there's no point in increasing Dex past ~50 (I think) even as a thief, unless you're doing ranged weapons," and "ranged weapons suck, really," for example.

 

[Murk]

You must be mistaken. Ranged combat is the easiest way through the game once you hit a decent bow. The dragons become a total joke, to the point where I didn't even bother using demon scrolls or fire rain or anything. They seriously just die, especially if you can get dex past the 150 marker. Orc Warlords go down in like 2-3 shots from crazy distance.

 

[Skittles]

I might be. I seem to remember that most enemy encounters in the game are face-to-face in enclosed spaces and ranged only really helps a lot if you use cheese tactics. This is compounded by the fact that most enemies run at you and try to engage you in melee combat--great to abuse if you set it up right, a chore to play through--rather than hit and run, (generally) ranged attacks of their own, etc. But maybe I'm just focusing on the parts where ranged is kind of balls rather than the places where it shines.

Maybe more importantly is that melee is just more fun, with the pattern learning and timing bits, in my book at least.

 

[Metro]

Melee is certainly more fun/challenging whereas ranged is so laughably easy it's extremely poor balance. Especially given the fact you don't have to aim.

 

[Murk]

Absolutely, melee is more fun, but playing a dex based character is fun too. Especially when you get acrobatics, and no longer have to be careful about breaking lock picks (fingers' chest comes to mind).

If archery was like it is in Gothic 3 or Risen, I'd be more pro-archery overall, but as of now, it's not a bad form either.

I personally think 1-handed weapons are the most fun, primarily because they lack the extra step when "back jumping" that two handed weapons seem to have.

 

[Revenant]

Dexterity-based (ranged) builds aren't deprived of melee capability, since there are very good dexterity-based swords in the game that are only slightly inferior to the best strength-based one-handed swords. Considering this and the ability to pick pockets, the ranged character should actually be the most powerful build one can play. Heck, now I am tempted to play as a dexterity-based character instead if I ever restart the game.

 

[Kraszu]

Dexterity-based (ranged) builds aren't deprived of melee capability, since there are very good dexterity-based swords in the game that are only slightly inferior to the best strength-based one-handed swords. Considering this and the ability to pick pockets, the ranged character should actually be the most powerful build one can play. Heck, now I am tempted to play as a dexterity-based character instead if I ever restart the game.

Yeah I did play dex based char, and I did fight mostly with melee. I don't recall any good DEX based swords for later in game but you also have Raven sword that is always good so I had just used that, and bow.

 

[Revenant]

Master sword does 120 damage, requires 60 dexterity and can be simply bought from Martin, while Ore Dragon Slayer (the best one-handed sword in the game) does 160 damage and requires 140 strength, by comparison. It seems dexterity-based swords beat everything in one-handed weapons department. I only wonder if the damage formula (attribute+weapon-resistance) holds for dexterity-based swords as well and has dexterity in place of attribute.

Besides, I found some attribute guides for NotR, maybe they will be useful to other people as well:

Strength guide

Dexterity guide

Mana guide

 

[Kraszu]

Master sword does 120 damage, requires 60 dexterity and can be simply bought from Martin, while Ore Dragon Slayer (the best one-handed sword in the game) does 160 damage and requires 140 strength, by comparison. It seems dexterity-based swords beat everything in one-handed weapons department. I only wonder if the damage formula (attribute+weapon-resistance) holds for dexterity-based swords as well and has dexterity in place of attribute.

No DEX doesn't add dmg to melee only to ranged. So in effect STR based weapons deal more then 2x more dmg. My master sword didn't do any dmg over 5dmg that was minimum later in the game.

 

[Ancient]

Don't do strict builds by the guide , it takes out half the fun. If you find game to be frustratingly difficult , just use Gothic difficulty editor to lower difficulty to Gothic 2 level.By the way Sveikas , malonu matyt Lietuvį čia.

 

[Revenant]

I don't advocate builds that follow guides strictly, but I still think that investing LPs into more than one attribute in G2:NotR is a major waste. At least if you intend to max an attribute in the later half of the game, plus two of the fighting skills. Labas, tautieti!

 

[Murk]

Correct, the real drawback of dex based characters is you can never compete at melee as you will not be sinking points into STR -- the positive is that very early on, you'll probably do better as the dex based weapons have a higher ratio of weapon damage to required stat and you can use all STR boosting items.

"Betty" is 130/110dex 1-hander, but with no bonus to 1-handed skill, which makes the master sword a better option... but shortly in that area you will also get the claw of beliar, which if you are not a mage, is the best 1-handed weapon (and, depending on your build, potentially best 2-handed weapon as well [when fully upgraded]).

 

[Skittles]

Mikayel and Revenant, my strategy is generally to get DEX up to ~40 or 50 so I can use the Master Sword (with stat boosting items) and pickpocket well, then switch to STR and one-handers. By the end of the game, I don't think you really miss the hit to strength in the early game. I don't think you really nerf your build by doing both attributes, so long as you know where to stop. Which is where the metagame planning does come into effect.

EDIT: The question there being, I was wondering what you thought, if it works out for you or not.

 

[Murk]

I did 1 dex run and a terrible jack-of-all trades attempt in the past.

The dex character was very easy to play, and I think my STR I had raised with LP until I hit the 1:1 ratio cap, at which point I used the 9+5 trick to stay a few ahead. Tossed all the dragoon roots, potions, apples, and everything else on it and ended up with a decent chunk of STR for that added oomph in criticals -- tho all that stopped matter once I got the Claw.

The jack-of-all trades was... strange. I went mage and used crossbows and two handed weapons, resulting... catastrophically. I simply did not have enough ability in any one category to effectively rely on it as a primary weapon, and any enemy outside of the norm was very difficult to get through.

However, simply putting some points into dex isn't a bad idea at all. I don't think I'd go past the 2:1 cost ratio, and there should be enough tablets/potions/herbs/etc. to raise your dex enough to use the master sword (not to mention temporarily using dex boosting gear). The bonus of jumping up a skill category in 1-handed is also useful, as the difference between the first skill level and no skill level is huge.

I guess it's a nice trade-off of "planning for later" and "enjoying now", and it will save you a world of headache with lockpicks breaking. I am tempted to try playing as a mage again but magic is so costly and LP intensive that I'm not sure if it would be worth it. Last time I got to Jarkendar and realized my crossbow skill was my best bet at combat, all due to tablets. Ridiculous.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS I AM FINALLY BECOMING MINIMALLY COMPETENT THE WILDLIFE IS NO LONGER RAPING ME

 

[Jasede]

Hm, that sucks Blobert.